Brooklyn, Now
by grandprincesscromwell
Summary: Steve is sad in Brooklyn between the events of Avengers and The Winter Soldier. He meets a woman and they...get to know each other. He has lots of feelings. This thing now officially has smut, and it's angsty emotional losing-virginity smut. Please let me know if you're enjoying it because I'm feeling unmotivated to write the rest (will be sad and hard to write)
1. Chapter 1

If he only looked at the glistening, shifting reflection of the city and the bridge in the restless surface of the river, he could almost believe he was 22 again. The war not even yet begun, the largest worry looming in his mind whether Bucky would abandon him tonight for some girl he met. In the timeless, churning water, it was still his bridge, still his city. He raised his eyes.

Fury wanted him to pack up, move to DC. "Better for you," he'd said, with that unflagging certainty that shaped his voice, "More work. Fewer Ghosts". And maybe he was right. It sounded right. In DC he wouldn't walk past every diner he'd ever choked down bitter coffee in when he couldn't afford food; past the Dance Hall-turned-CVS where he'd been stood up for his first date; past the empty lot that was the ice cream parlor Bucky took him to afterwards to cheer him up; past the place he'd bought flowers to lay on his mom's grave, and what was it now? A funeral home. How appropriate.

In DC he could blend, another returning soldier, another anonymous spy, another American icon. In DC maybe he could even start over, although he knew better than to hope for much.

It was hard to imagine living anywhere other than Brooklyn. After the aliens, all he wanted was to find a place in his old neighborhood and settle in, figure out what the hell had happened, plan his next move. Then he saw his old neighborhood and, well…

He tore his eyes away from what had become of the Manhattan skyline and turned to walk home. It had gotten late while he was in the park and there weren't a lot of people left on the streets. It was a chilly evening, after about a month of chilly evenings, so the windows in the buildings above his head were shut tight. He could see the warm glow of happy kitchens and bedrooms, the cold static flicker of television sets, but all silent.

Ahead of him, about a block, a woman emerged from a subway station and turned for a minute in the amber pool of light cast by a street lamp, confused. She consulted her phone and spun around again. Her hair was dark, softly curled around her shoulders. Her green dress fell to her knees. From this distance, she could have been Peggy. Looking for him, waiting for him. _"Steve, is that you?"_ When he had discovered how clear his memories of the war still were, after 70 years under an iceberg, he had moved "Sharpening of Memory and Focus" above the "not being able to get drunk" on his list of shitty things about his transformation. He could still hear the exact cadence and emotion of her voice. _"You don't have to do this"._

Up ahead, the woman had decided on a direction and begun to walk, tentatively. He tried not to focus on her, but just as he made the decision to look away, and maybe turn down a side street, he saw a thin, shadowy form peel itself off the wall of a building in between street lamps and move after her. His gut tightened. The man was staying close to the walls of buildings, carefully out of the light. He passed a bar and the neon signs cast vivid green patterns on his pale skin. Steve walked faster.

Ahead, the woman paused briefly before turning a corner, and he caught a glimpse of her face. She really did look like Peggy, or maybe his mind was playing cruel tricks on him again. The man, somehow gaining ground, passed the corner as well and now they were both well out of his sight. Steve's chest tightened. He let his feet break into a run. If he was wrong, he would just be wrong. But if he was right…

Twenty feet from where he skidded around the corner, the man had grabbed the woman and was holding her against a wall, his bulky forearm resting across her collarbones. With his free hand, he grabbed the purse she was offering him and threw it behind him into the street. He reached for the hem of her dress. She screamed at the top of her lungs but the windows above her head were closed tight against the wind and the noise of the street. A few blocks over, a siren wailed, and beneath them, the A train rumbled.

Steve was there so fast he surprised even himself. He ripped the man's arm away from her chest and twisted, threw all his weight into a kick that landed on the man's square chin and snapped his bald head backwards. The attacker did not so much stumble as plummet backwards towards the street. He landed next to the purse he had thrown, and made to grab it as he scrambled to his feet.

"Leave it", Steve said through his teeth. And he did, spitting blood and staggering away as fast as his dizzy legs could carry him. Steve turned to look at the woman, who was still leaning against the wall. She didn't look like Peggy, or maybe she did. She had the same big, dark eyes, the same warm face, the same gorgeous lips. She was more angular than Peggy, and there were tears pouring down her face. He realized as he looked at her that he had never seen Peggy cry.


	2. Chapter 2

"Thank you". Her voice betrayed only the slightest quaver. She was pressing her hands against the wall behind her, her whole body tense. "Uh…sure". He went to pick her purse up out of the street, brushed off some gravel with his hand before he handed it to her.

She hesitated for a moment before taking it. Steve realized the wall was holding her up. She squeezed her hands into fists and straightened, her legs trembling. She took a breath and set her jaw, and all at once he was standing in front of Peggy. "Put your left foot forward Hodge". He smiled at the memory of Peggy's fist slamming into the side of Hodge's thick face.

She tried to smile back at him, weakly. She took her purse. "Thank you".

"Can I walk you home…or wherever you're going?"

Her dazed expression sharpened. "What do you mean, wherever I'm going?"

"Oh, I noticed you seemed a little confused, back when you came out of the-"

"You were following me?"

"I was behind you-"

"For six blocks?"

"Well", Steve stuttered "I saw that guy start following you so I followed-"

"So you were following me."

"I was following to make sure-"

"For six blocks-"

"Hi, I'm Steve"

She smiles. "Kate".

"Kate. I'm sorry, I should have called out to you. I'm used to…not this, I guess."

"It's like that story, with the headlights."

Steve shook his head. "The one where the woman is driving and there's a serial killer in her backseat but she doesn't know so the guy behind her keeps flashing his headlights at her - I guess it isn't actually that similar…" Steve shrugged. "How do you not know that story? It's like the hook-hand story!" He tilted his head apologetically. "You don't know the hook hand story?! That is not possible".

"Can I…I'd like to walk with you" He was glad she had calmed down. She didn't remind him as much of Peggy when she was calm. _Still, there was something about her eyes…_

She stared him down for a long moment. _Those eyes…_

"Okay," she decided. "Then I can figure out what planet you're from". Steve felt a sudden tension in his spine, but managed to ignore it. He tried to laugh, but the image of Chitauri soldiers pouring out of a hole in the sky like flies from a corpse filled all the brainspace where his sense of humor used to be. Tony would probably say he didn't have a sense of humor. Bucky used to say that sometimes too, usually by way of apology. _Steve you gotta gimme a break! I know I said I wouldn't leave you at Coney Island in the middle of the night but you gotta have a sense of humor about these things. Besides, did you see that girl's kno-_

"So?" She broke through his reverie, a few feet ahead of him. "Are you coming?"

"Sure"


	3. Chapter 3

"So?" She broke through his reverie, a few feet ahead of him. "Are you coming?"

"Sure"

He caught up with her in two strides and walked silently beside her.

"Do you get 'Captain America' all the time now?"

"What?" Steve looked down at her, confused.

"You look a lot like him, I just wondered if people tell you that."

"Is that...are you joking?"

She turned to look up at him and stopped abruptly, grabbed his arm. "Oh my God."

Steve grimaced. _Too slow, could have played along. Big dope._

"Oh my God, you're Captain America! No wonder you don't know that stupid story!"

'Yeah, probably after my time"

"Oh man, do you just not know what anyone is talking about around you?" She clicked her tongue. "That is just the worst".

"It can be annoying"

"Sorry for contributing"

Steve laughed. "It's fine" They began walking again, minutes passing in silence.

"Are you keeping a list? Of everything you need to catch up on?"

"No, but that's a good idea"

"Ooh, yes! I just bought this three-pack of notebooks!" She stopped again, digging around in her purse. After a moment, she emerged with a small block wrapped in plastic. She tore open the wrapping and offered him one of the small black notebooks. Steve started to reject it. "No, please, she said "it's literally the least I can do". She handed him the notebook, then dove back into her purse. "Aaaaand…here is a pen!"

"Thanks"

"Now, immediately open that notebook and write down 'I Love Lucy', which is the most important TV show of all time. And you're welcome in advance."

Steve laughed and wrote it down. "I'll check it out"

"I think the place is right around the corner…" She pulled out her phone to look at an address.

"This is it over here". They approached an apartment building with a short flight of stairs. Kate fished a set of keys out of her purse and started to climb.

"So it is your apartment" said Steve, a little bemused.

"Oh…no. I'm cat-sitting."

Steve stared at her blankly. He pulled the notebook and pen out of his pocket . Kate laughed. _Had he heard her laugh yet? Not like this._ It was a beautiful, melodic laugh. She tilted her head back and the laughter just poured out of her.

"Someone is paying me to take care of their cat while they're on vacation. Rich people are crazy. That's probably always been true."

Steve thought with a pang of Howard, his old friend, another ghost.

"I think you might be right."

Steve watched as she jingled the keys in her hand. The tension had slipped back into her body. She was nervous again.

"Do you…you'll be alone up there, huh? Do you want me to wait with you? You could call someone to come stay?" Steve tried to look earnest. He'd seen Bucky use similar lines so many times as an excuse to get into a girls apartment.

" _Once you're in, Stevie, you're in…if you catch my drift"_

" _Buck, that's dishonest"_

" _Nah, she won't let you up if she doesn't want you to come up. Honestly, I find most girls are a little offended if you don't even try to make a move on 'em. Shows you had a nice time on the date! So you say, 'aw baby, you don't want to go up to that apartment all by yourself! There could be a murderer up there! You better let me come check under your bed!' and then you maybe tickle her a little bit."_

" _I don't know, Buck"_

" _You don't know anything"_

"Actually" she replied quietly, chewing her lower lip, "Do you think you could just walk me up? I'll be fine once I'm in and I know there's no one there. I can just lock the door."

"Alright." Steve followed her up the stairs, through the tiny entryway, crammed with packages. They walked together up a few flights of stairs and he waited as she unlocked a nondescript door. Most of the lights were off in the apartment, so she started looking for a switch, and called "Hello" into the darkness of the hallway. After she found some of the lights a cat came meowing loudly down the hallway towards them and wrapped itself around each of their legs in turn.

Steve slid past her, moving further into the apartment. He opened doors as he moved, _bathroom, closet, closet, pantry._ He turned on all the lights he passed. _Kitchen, living room, bedroom, closet._ He checked behind furniture, under the bed, and on the fire escape. He walked back to where she was, now in the kitchen, perched on the edge of a stool with the cat purring in her lap and a note in her hand. "They left extra money for takeout!" she said happily. 'What nice people".

"You're all clear back there"

"Thank you" she looked at him, suddenly intense. "Thank you".

She stood, setting the protesting cat on the counter with the note. She crossed to him and stood on tiptoe, wrapping her arms around his neck. He wasn't sure what to do. As if summoned by his ineptitude, he could see Bucky and Howard standing shoulder to shoulder, rolling their eyes and smacking themselves in the forehead. _Hug her back you big dope!_

Steve wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She smelled like lavender and vanilla. Was he holding on too long? Too hard? He let go, and she lingered for a moment before doing the same. When she pulled away, he saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

"I…I can't leave you like this. Are you sure there isn't anyone you could call?"

She shook her head. "I'll be okay. Although, if you want…" She walked back over to the counter, the note and a pair of twenties. "How do you feel about Sushi?"

"I don't even know what that is."

"Honestly" she said, wiping tears from her cheeks, "You are so lucky you met me."


	4. Chapter 4

Thirty minutes later, Steve was sitting awkwardly on the sofa, sinking into thick, soft cushions - _when did furniture get so soft anyway_ \- with a plastic container of sushi on his lap. He could say honestly that this was one of the strangest things he had been asked to adapt to. Raw fish? People ate raw fish now. It was, he could admit, very beautiful. It looked like little jewels. He could appreciate the artistry. But he was also very, very aware that he was staring down a platter of raw fish.

Across from him, draped over a large and squishy-looking armchair, was Kate, already dipping a piece of sushi into a dark sauce. She opened her mouth and put the whole piece in at once, looking suddenly like a chipmunk. _A pretty chipmunk..._ Steve shook his head. She looked up at him and froze. "Ooo gob ipa idda foyfaws"

"What?"

She swallowed, holding up one finger. "You've gotta dip it in the soy sauce", she said, pushing the plastic lid towards him, into which she had poured the sauce. "It's good, very salty".

Steve nodded slowly, tried to navigate the two sticks she had given him to eat the food. He looked up at her helplessly. She laughed that laugh again and handed him a plastic fork from the bag next to her. "No shame" she said. He took the fork and picked up one of the small rolls, dipped it in the sauce and held it in front of him, dubiously. He shook his head again and then put the whole thing in his mouth.

It was incredible. A riot of flavors, salty, savory, sweet. He could feel the smooth heavy fish, the crisp vegetables, the strange tautness of the seaweed against his tongue. He chewed slowly, savoring the experience. "Wow", he said after he swallowed. She laughed again and he felt his chest tighten a little. "Boy, I'm really glad you liked it". She smiled at him. "I was worried".

He laughed a little, took up another piece of sushi with his fork and smiled at her over the top of it before taking a bite. She watched him and seemed content, folding her legs underneath her and sitting up. She set her plastic tray down on the coffee table. Her eyes were soft, dark pools softly reflecting warm light. He tried not to watch her, watching him, lest he find himself swallowed up by their gentle depths. He tried to concentrate on the program she had playing on the shiny flat screen of the television. As far as he could tell, it was a woman who got into trouble and then tried to hide it from her husband. When he failed to concentrate on that, he stared deeply into his food.

"Does Captain America drink beer?" When he turned to look at her she was just as intensely focused on him as he had pretended to be on his sushi. "Ah...he does...I mean, I do"

" _Jesus, Steve. A woman is just a person. There's no reason for you to be as nervous as you are. Just talk to her like you would some guy from the neighborhood. "_

 _"But Buck, I don't do so well with the guys from the neighborhood either."_

 _"Well just try not to panic so much, you're making_ _ **me**_ _anxious"_

Kate returned with two glass bottles and an opener. She cracked the top off the first and handed it to Steve. As she passed it to him, their fingers touched around the neck of the bottle. He looked into her eyes and regretted it immediately. Her eyes were wells and he was drowning in them.

"So how old are you exactly?"

"Wow"

"No, I'm just curious" she laughed "I mean how do you count?"

"I was born in 1918, so I'll be 95 in July".

"But, do you count all those years? Or are you...like, 26?"

Steve took a long sip of his beer. It was good. Beer had gotten really good. Hs body felt younger now than it had when he was 18 and could barely make it up the stairs, with grinding in his joints and a constant shortness of breath. He knew he looked closer to 26 than 95. He knew that it would be nice to be 26, in a world full of new possibilities. But his mind felt 95. And his heart, his heart was somewhere at the base of a cliff in Switzerland, buried in snow.

"I guess both."


	5. Chapter 5

The cat kept up onto Steve's lap and nuzzled his chest, meowing softly. He had read somewhere that animals could sense distress. Or maybe it was hungry. Steve reached up to stroke the cat's soft fur. He could feel that Kate's eyes were still on him, pressing into him from across the living room.

"How fucked up is it that you died and then you come back and BAM! You've got aliens and you have to just...defend the earth. That's...that's a lot."

He turned to look at her. She was earnest, fiercely so. She had what Bucky had once called "An overdeveloped sense of injustice". He had been talking about Steve.

Steve looked down into the cat's bright orange eyes. "It gave me something to do, honestly. I was pretty lost when I woke up and then, this was a mission. Something to live—" he paused, shook his head a little. "Something to fight for."

He looked up from the cat at her and saw that her eyes had filled with tears. And then, as soon as he saw them, they were gone. Maybe he had imagined them.

"You need something to fight for, huh?"

"I...I guess I do."

A too-long moment passed as they stared into each other's eyes. Steve felt the air in the room grow heavy with something he was frightened to name. He felt drunk, though he knew that was not possible. His thoughts were chaotic, disorganized, too fast. It was like a ride at Coney Island, all dizzying colors and bright lights.

He had decided to die, and somehow lived. _Her eyes were dark and soft, like falling asleep slowly_. The world was full of every possibility, and empty of everyone he had ever loved. _Her hair was dark like Peggy's._ Everyone had told him to go out into the world and make a life. He was never going to see Bucky again, or dance with Peggy. A few weeks ago, he had fought an alien invasion on the streets of Manhattan. _She was biting her lower lip_. Bucky had told him a hundred times if he'd told him once: " _If you're not sure if you should kiss her, and she bites her lip, she's waiting to be kissed."_

Steve stood up. "I should go. It's late."

Kate stood up and faced him. "Don't."

Steve swallowed hard. She was walking towards him. She came so close, too close. The top of her head barely reached his chin. She looked up at him, her dark eyes shining. "Don't go."

Steve was transported for a moment to a conversation he'd had with Tony a few days earlier. He had been contemplating the relative benefits of moving to D.C. to work with SHIELD and Tony had come in and said he had his "Old man bad memories" face on and asked him what was wrong. When Steve had explained the decision he was trying to make, Tony had laughed. "What you need isn't a job, Cap, what you need is a date. And preferably someone who will put out." Steve had gotten up to leave because he didn't feel like getting teased and then Tony had said something else, something Howard had said to him when he'd asked for advice about Peggy all those years ago.

" _Sometimes the best thing you can do is dive in. You can't always be waiting for the right time and letting every slightly-less-than-right time pass you by. That's the thing you'll regret the most."_ Steve had been aghast at finding father and son briefly occupy the same body, but he'd still felt like the advice wasn't helpful. Except suddenly it was ringing in his mind.

He had waited three quarters of a century—longer, really, to find someone special and now he was just going to do what a couple of generations of Stark had been telling him all along. He was going to dive in.

 _Okay_ , he thought. _Okay_. _First things First_.

He reached a hand up and ran his fingers down the side of her face. Her skin was so soft. She closed her eyes. He gently, so gently, cupped her chin in his hand and leaned down. He didn't close his eyes until he touched her lips with his own. He pressed his lips to hers, gently separating them, and then releasing. He felt her exhale, so he kissed her again, a little harder. Her hand found its way to the back of his neck, where she drew tiny circles with her fingers in his hair. He slid one hand down to her waist, pulled her closer to his body, surprised to find there was any space between them at all.

He could feel her heart beating against his chest. He pulled back ever so slightly. "Are you okay?" She nodded gently and stood on her toes to press her lips to his again. He wrapped her tiny waist in his arms and lifted her, carried her backwards towards the bedroom. Her legs wrapped around his hips, tight, squeezing, pressing. He could feel the blood rushing through his body. His stomach was tight, his head was buzzing.

He sensed it a moment too late, the cat winding its way between his legs as he walked. _Fuck_. He tripped, still carrying her, and twisted as he fell, trying desperately to stop himself landing on her. He landed hard on his back but managed not to smack his head against the wood. _Idiot_.

"Oh my god!" She was sitting on top of him, upright, her hands covering her mouth. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah I tripped over the cat, sorry." He could imagine the body-shaking laugh that this story would produce in Bucky and felt tears sting the back of his eyes.

"I'm really sorry." He started to sit up, help her off of his lap, give up, maybe go walk around the park in the cold for a couple more hours. But she was looking at him strangely. "You sure you're okay, Rogers?" Her voice was low. He nodded. She set her hands on his larger ones and slid them up her thighs. She pressed her hips down against him, and put one hand on his chest. She leaned down, so slowly, until her lips were an inch from his. "It's a good thing we both have sushi breath."

He started to laugh but found himself kissed instead. Her kiss was like a laugh, light and playful, but in his chest and stomach, something stronger and bigger was building. Under her hips, which were moving back and forth against him, he could feel his cock stiffening. He groaned a little into the kiss. She pulled away, but he didn't even have time to worry that he'd done something wrong before her lips found his jaw, traced the edge with tiny bites and then down to his neck, where she kissed and licked and he could actual feel every rational thought emptying out of his brain like water out of a pitcher.

" _Intensity and specificity of sensation will be increased" had always been one of his least favorites, but then, before now it had always, always meant pain._

"Should we move to the bed?" He had asked, clinging desperately to the last shreds of cognizance he possessed. "Why?" She asked, in that low, heavy voice. _Why? Isn't that where people have sex?_ Steve was bewildered but he didn't have any room for it. She was sitting up again, and she was unzipping her dress and she was lifting it over her head, and Steve found he didn't have room for anything that wasn't his desperate need for her. He didn't have room for confusion or worry. He didn't have room for regret. He didn't have room for sorrow.

Her body was pale, glowing in the moonlight coming through the window. She was softly curved in every place he could see or touch, anywhere he was hard and angular, she was like a pillow. She was like falling snow, or still water, or the smell of lilac on the first day of spring. _Soft_.

He sat up, holding her close to him, so he could kiss her. She started pulling off his t-shirt. They were kissing again, now with their skin touching. He was filled with a thirst that his mind had no idea how to quench. His fingers seemed to know though, and they made their way to the clasps on her bra, where their knowledge found its limit. Her fingers joined his and she pulled off her bra and flung it somewhere across the room. Her bare, soft chest was pressed to his. Her skin smelled like vanilla and lavender. Her hair smelled like lemons. She pulled back and his eyes found her newly exposed breasts in the silvery dim light.

" _Eyesight enhanced in any lighting conditions" Thank god._

Her breasts were round, pale, heavy. They hung lower on her chest than he expected. He filled his hands with them and sighed, needing something he couldn't or wouldn't name. He noticed that her hands were low on his stomach, and then that they were trying to open his belt. She was at an awkward angle. She stopped, reached past him, pulled the edge of the quilt on the bed until the whole thing was in a heap on the floor, then pushed him gently backwards until his was on his back, his head now resting on the bunched quilt.

He reached down to help her with his belt, but she pushed his hands away. She shook her head gently and smiled. "You just relax" she said, and leaned down to kiss him again. He watched her as she undid his belt, his zipper, began to pull down his jeans. He laid, almost frozen, as she slid her fingers inside the waistband of his briefs. She looked up at him. "Okay?"

She was biting her lip again. Steve nodded, fully unable to form words. She pulled his briefs down, off. They disappeared into the darkness of the room. He watched her look at his erection for a moment. Her eyes were soft and dark, and there was something electric in the way she looked at it, a light in her eyes. She moved towards it, and looked deep into Steve's eyes as she slipped it into her mouth.

 _Jesus Christ._

Her mouth was warm and wet, and like every other part of her, soft. She slid her tongue over and under his penis as she moved her lips further down his length. She moaned, so quiet he almost didn't hear it. Steve realized he was holding his breath. She slid back up and took just the head in her mouth, stroking the shaft, now slick, with her hand. She pressed her tongue against his head and licked him like a ten cent cone. Steve breathed in sharply, letting it out in a long groan. His core shuddered. She smiled.

She licked one side of his shaft all the way down and up again, then the other side. Steve tried not to close his eyes. He felt the way you feel when you're going up a big hill on a roller coaster. He knew the drop was coming, that swooping sensation, the fear and the thrill and the loss of control. He tried to look down at her as she swirled her tongue in circles around his head. One of her hands reached up and gently squeezed his balls, and that was it.

His head was buzzing, ringing white light that smelled like lemons and lavender and vanilla. His body was only the sensation of his release, the heat and then the sudden cold, the tingling in his thighs and feet and shoulder blades. He felt removed from the weight and reality of his own body, for a moment, released. _Free_.

He came down slowly, opened his eyes. She was there, so beautiful, wiping her face. She squinted at him in the dark. "You know it's considered polite to warn a lady before you come in her mouth." _Fuck_. "I'm so sorry, Kate, I..."

She laughed lightly, wiping the corner of her mouth. "It's not a big deal. Besides. I know how you're gonna make it up to me."

She smiled mischievously at him and he could see her eyes sparkling. Her whole form was surrounded with a halo of hazy light now. _Can I die for you? Is that it? Because I'll do it._ He waited for instruction.

She leaned down towards him, kissed him. Her lips were salty. She was turning him, pulling him on top of her. He kissed her again a little harder. Her hands were on his shoulders and she gave him a gentle push. He kissed her neck, the shimmer of sweat on her collarbone, the swell of her breast, her hard, wrinkled nipple. He pulled it into his mouth, pushed it around with his tongue as his lips spread to take in more of the smooth skin of her breast. He heard her clipped moan from above. Her hand found the top of his head and gave another gentle push. He slid lower, kissing her soft, rounded stomach. He kept kissing lower, pressed his lips to her skin, just above the lacy edge of her underwear.

He slid lower, kissed the fullness of her pale thighs, squeezing them, delighting in the way his fingers sank into her. She arched her hips up towards him and something in his brain finally clicked. "Uh...you want me to..." He gestured a little awkwardly at the dark fabric between her thighs.

"Is that...okay?" She seemed a little nervous.

"It's...I just don't know what I'm doing." His shoulders dropped apologetically.

"I'll tell you what to do. I bet you'll be a natural." she was smiling at him, and the halo of light was back, making him feel weightless.

He nodded, reached up and began to slowly pull her underwear down, over her soft skin and a small patch of dark curly hair, and then over her thighs (he loved those, he went slowly) and down over her calves and feet. He returned to this last, secret space. He looked up at her. She was biting her lip.

" _If she's biting her lip, she wants to be kissed_."

He lowered his head, placed a kiss near that dark hair, gently. He heard her exhale, tight, heavy. Almost a whimper. He kissed the insides of her thighs, which trembled a little. He kissed the place below the curly hair where the cleft in her skin began and she whimpered in earnest. He kissed a little harder and felt the folds begin to separate beneath his lips. He slid a finger between them. "God, Steve, yes" Low and heavy. Needy.

He pulled the folds apart with his hands and found her pink and glistening within. He pressed his mouth against her, opened it, slid his tongue up and down. He tasted something sweet and heavy, almost like smoke. He breathed her in. He licked her. His tongue found her entrance and she gasped. His tongue found a hard round bud and her whole body began to shake. "Steve. please" barely vocalized, just pure sensation. He could recognize it. It's how he had felt a few moments ago.

He moved his tongue and lips around the bud, holding her shaking thighs. His cock was hard again, against the cold wooden floor. "Steve, put your fingers inside me" Her voice was quiet but desperate. He recognized that too. He slid a finger to the entrance he had discovered earlier and pressed in slowly, gently. He could feel her slick, muscular walls squeezing against his finger. He added another and his erection throbbed.

He felt her take a deep breath and hold it. Her encouragement did not stop with her lack of vocalization. She gripped his hair, pulling his head closer, her heavy thighs (God he loved them) starting to press in on the sides of his head. He was deaf with their weight on his ears. His eyes were shut tight. He could perceive only the taste of her and the smell of her and the feeling of her all around him. His world was nothing but her body, shuddering on the verge of climax.

When she came, he could hear her cry like he was underwater, through the crush of her thighs on his face. He could feel it flow through her body. He felt her shaking and her grip on his hair tightened and then disappeared. He continued to kiss and suck and stroke, kept sliding his fingers into her and out again. His cock was so hard it was aching now, leaking onto the floor. His hands wanted to be everywhere at once, her thick thighs, her warm cunt, his hard dick, her smooth breasts, her mouth, her hair, her face. He was nothing but want.

Her hand returned to his hair, he felt her breathe in deeply again, her legs tensing, her foot, on his back, arching painfully. He pressed his tongue and fingers into her more forcefully, and she came again, shaking and crying something that sounded like his name.

He kept kissing, but now the hand that had slackened on his hair was pulling him up, her legs falling away to the side. "Steve, c'mere"

He slid his body up hers, never losing contact for a second. He could see that halo of light, expanding and contracting with her breaths. She was pulsing, glowing. She pulled him up until they were face to face. He wiped his chin. She kissed him deeply. She was breathless, flushed. Her face was so open, her cheeks red with effort, her eyes dark with passion. She kissed him and he felt her hand close around his aching erection. She wrapped her free arm around his back and pulled him close, guiding him into her. He let her show him the way. He took a breath and held it.

Pushing inside her, feeling her squeezing him, her body warm under him, around him. She moved her legs, he could feel the angle shift. He pumped slowly, he let his body do everything. He let his body, the body that science had given him (and whatever was left of the tiny, lonely man inside) do all the work. He let his body pursue the needs it had for so long been forced to ignore.

The doubts had fled his mind. The _word_ doubt had no relevance to him.

He looked down at her beautiful, moonlit face. The idea of regret had vanished. He could never regret her. He felt the halo of light that surrounded her was finding its way around him. He felt that they were joined in a pool of soft, warm, pulsing light.

As he pushed deeper into her, he looked into her eyes, those wells into which he had feared so greatly to plummet. And he just...dived in.


End file.
